I installed Arduino 1.03 on my Windows 8 64-Bit laptop last week. It was working no problem. I had my "My Documents" folder on a redirected folder on a server. Yesterday I moved the "My Documents" folder to drive D: on my laptop. Now when I try to run the IDE I get a Message Box titled "Sketchbook folder disappeared" and the message "The Sketchbook folder no longer exists. Arduino will switch to the default sketchbook location, and create a new sketchbook folder if necessary. Arduino will then stop talking about himself in the third person". When I hit the OK button, I get another message box titled "You forgot your sketchbook" with the message "Arduino cannot run because it could not create a folder to store your sketchbook". When I click OK, the program exits. I have read in other posts that it looks in My Documents for a folder called Arduino and mentions a configuration file. I can't find such a file. I am running out of time to finish my project and I can't seem to find a solution to this problem. :0 :~

Open the IDE, then select in the files menu, preferences. There is a browse button that lets you search out and select the location of your desired sketch folder location. Then hit OK, close the IDE and then reopen it and you should be OK after that.

Lefty, the IDE will not open. After the second message it simply exits. However, I did some searching and I found that in the folder Users\<user name>\appdata\roaming there is a folder called Arduino and there is where the preferences.txt file is stored. I simply edited the file to point to the correct folder location and problem solved. The IDE now runs and I am able to once again work on my project

Lefty, the IDE will not open. After the second message it simply exits. However, I did some searching and I found that in the folder Users\<user name>\appdata\roaming there is a folder called Arduino and there is where the preferences.txt file is stored. I simply edited the file to point to the correct folder location and problem solved. The IDE now runs and I am able to once again work on my project

Good for you, nice to see you are "back on the air".

I have about four different versions of the IDE loaded on my machine and have set up different user sketch directories for each one, but and IDE one opens only wants to look at one place (appdata) so I have to remember to change the file preference option to point to the specific user directory I've setup for each IDE version as I use different user hardware options and user libraries for the different IDE versions. So it's kind of a pain but doable and needed/useful in the long run.

Good Idea! I have to make a note of that because I am going to be working on different projects also. I am sort of a newbie at the Arduino level, but about thirty some years ago I used to work in R&D and breadboarding was my bread and butter. Back then, though, everything was discrete, we were just beginning to see microprocessors come into being. I used to work with the Intel 8080 and Motorola 6400 (I am dating myself). But to do what you can do with a microcontroller like the Arduino, it took a 10" x 10" circuit board full of chips! Amazing! I am just now getting back into this because of my 16 year-old daughter, who is really into Robotics and STEM subjects.

Good Idea! I have to make a note of that because I am going to be working on different projects also. I am sort of a newbie at the Arduino level, but about thirty some years ago I used to work in R&D and breadboarding was my bread and butter. Back then, though, everything was discrete, we were just beginning to see microprocessors come into being. I used to work with the Intel 8080 and Motorola 6400 (I am dating myself). But to do what you can do with a microcontroller like the Arduino, it took a 10" x 10" circuit board full of chips! Amazing! I am just now getting back into this because of my 16 year-old daughter, who is really into Robotics and STEM subjects.

Thanks for your help!

Yes it's a great hobby, DIY electronics has never had it better in what you can get, what it costs, and what you can make it do, and I started over 60 years ago. The biggest problem I saw back in the 'good old days' of Z-80 and 6800 chips were that we didn't have the power of todays PC to host the large (and free) software tool chains and resources that make today's microcontroller chips so easy to use. If the avr chip had to host it's own compiler and editor tools we use in the IDE it just wouldn't be a viable product.